


stripped to the bone, i wait

by imadetheline



Series: Breathe In, Breathe Out [26]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29743563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadetheline/pseuds/imadetheline
Summary: febuwhump day twenty-six - recovery
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
Series: Breathe In, Breathe Out [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140389
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	stripped to the bone, i wait

**Author's Note:**

> title from thousand eyes by of monsters and men (for Godelaine who commented on my last fic and whose favorite omam song is thousand eyes ;)
> 
> I'm not super happy with this one but oh well. inspo taken from the new run of sw comics that started last year i think. takes place right after bespin. enjoy

Luke curses as his shot goes wide, and he’s forced to roll away from the training droid’s return fire. He’s managed to hit it all of three measly times in the last fifteen minutes, thanks to his new prosthetic. He flexes it again, willing it to work with his body. But he presses the trigger and misses another time. The droid takes advantage, and a return shot hits him in the arm, sending tingles through the limb. He shakes it out roughly, endlessly frustrated, and quickly reaches for the remote to power down the droid, watching with some satisfaction as it drops to the ground with a thump, rolling across the Falcon’s hold.

He huffs out a breath and throws the blaster aside. It lands with a clatter on the dejarik table, and he runs his flesh hand through his hair roughly, fingers pulling on the blond strands in irritation. Luke stares down at the prosthetic attached to his right wrist and flexes it again. There’s only the slightest delay. It’s barely noticeable by itself, but he’s having to recalibrate all his movements slightly, making hitting a moving target accurately a challenging task.

And he doesn’t even want to think about the Force. It’s dancing just out of his reach, so he ignores it, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back, pulling in a lungful of the cold oxygen that the Falcon is too faulty to make warmer, trying to release some of his anger. But there’s something about the air in space: artificial and empty. His lungs expand, and he keeps living, but it doesn’t calm him, center him, like breathing in the fresh air planetside.

“Luke!” Leia’s voice breaks through his thoughts, and he blinks, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling of the hold. Slowly, he tilts his chin back down, catching sight of his blaster sitting on the table and his jacket thrown over the booth. The round training droid has settled into a groove in the Falcon’s floor plating, motionless. And then Leia rounds the corner, stepping smoothly over the droid without looking, her dark eyes focused on Luke. “I think  _ Lando _ ” --the way she says his name loudly implies she hasn’t forgiven him yet-- “has a lead on your lightsaber.” She pauses, hesitating, and then, “But we’d have to go back to Bespin.”

And in his mind’s eye, Luke sees flashes of blue and red clashing and sparking, falling, falling, falling. He’s falling, and there’s no air in his lungs, artificial or otherwise. He can’t breathe.

“Hey.” He blinks and Leia’s standing closer, staring up at him as she takes his hands between hers. She smiles sadly, warmth in her eyes, “It’s okay. Lando and I can look for it. I have some business there anyway.” She squeezes his hands tightly, her voice soft but steady, “You don’t have to go.”

The kindness there, the inescapable love--that she would go for him, spare him the pain of something he hasn’t even explained to her: he blinks back the moisture building in the back of his eyes. But even as she’d said it, he’d never considered leaving her to go alone. The lightsaber is his responsibility, and he’s not the only one who lost something there, who has pain lingering on the city in the clouds.

He looks down at her, scanning her face. She’s not quite smiling, but her shoulders are held high, and her hands are warm and strong in his. Leia always has been fiercely resilient--Luke grips her hands tighter--She shouldn’t have to be.

Suddenly, she exhales sharply and pulls her hands away. Luke starts, “Leia, what- Are you okay?”

She nods but doesn’t look at him, shaking out her left hand and flexing the fingers. And Luke’s eyes finally catch on the red marks marring her pale skin. With a growing sense of horror, he looks down at his right hand, the prosthetic that’s stronger than his real hand, that he hasn’t adjusted to yet, and he looks back up at Leia, eyes wide. He hurt her. Memories of darkness and shouted words-- _ join me _ \--flood his mind, the Falcon falling away, replaced by clouds; is pain all he can give to the ones he loves? Is that what he’s destined to be? The Force won’t answer him, and he feels like he’s falling again.

But then there’s warmth on his arm--Leia’s hand wrapping around his bicep. He tries to pull back, guilt flooding his chest. But her grip is too powerful. So he stops struggling and just looks down at the metal floor, refusing to meet her eyes. It’s his fault Han is gone, and his body doesn’t even feel like it belongs to him anymore. He doesn’t want to hurt her any more than he already has. 

“Luke, look at me.” He doesn’t. He can’t. And then the hand on his arm is gone, and Luke lets out the little air he’s been holding in his lungs. But then, a moment later, her touch returns, grabbing his hands again just as she had before. Panic races through his veins, and he jerks his head up incredulously. This is how he hurt her; where is her self-preservation?

But her eyes are sparkling with fire, and her expression is hard, “Luke, I’m fine. I’m alright. You didn’t hurt me.” He shakes his head, pushing back the tears, but Leia doesn’t let him start arguing. She just squeezes his prosthetic as tight as she can, so tight the false nerve endings fire with mild pain signals, and all Luke can do is stare down at her, not breathing. “You are not what happened on Bespin. You are a person, and we’re going to get through this: together.” Her tone leaves no room for argument, as if she can speak the promise into life with pure belief.

He can’t meet her eyes. “I don’t know how. I don’t- I  _ hurt _ you.” He stops, losing any other words in the writhing mass of his grief and confusion.

Leia’s grip loosens, but she doesn’t let go, her eyes softening, “Things are going to get better, Luke. It’s just not always obvious. Progress and recovery aren’t events; they’re steps.” She smiles, “And I know you, Luke Skywalker: you’re always moving forward.”

And that… makes sense, finally piercing the fog in his mind. But since he  _ is _ a Skywalker, he opens his mouth to argue. Leia steps back, dropping his hands, and raises her eyebrows, speaking before he can. She’s always been quicker with words. “Besides, how many times have I accidentally punched you while we were training?”

Luke huffs and rolls his eyes, unable to stop the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Some of them weren’t accidental if I remember correctly,” he mumbles.

She smirks, crossing her arms over her tan vest, “Exactly. So I think we’re even.”

And then she pivots on her heel, crossing the hold, again stepping over the training droid seemingly without a thought. Luke shakes his head, smiling. Somehow she manages to smooth the edges of his grief with just her presence and a few words. He doesn’t know how she does it.

Leia turns before she disappears from view, “So, you coming?”

  
And Luke thinks about his lightsaber tumbling down with his hand, clouds and smoke threatening to overwhelm him, but then he remembers Leia’s words-- _ Together _ \--and he smiles, “Yeah, I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys liked it leave a comment. They make my day! Seriously I love reading them so please leave me one cause they motivate me to write more! if you guys have ideas for other stories send me an ask on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imadetheline) or just yell about stuff with me. Info about me and all my other tumblrs are [here](https://infoabtmaddie.carrd.co/#)


End file.
